Behind every face you see, is a story….here’s mine (as told by my mother and family members):

The Terror

I was born in Vietnam in a hospital so poor that my mother gave birth to me on concrete. My mother writhed in agony as she had complications during the process while doctors and nurses ran all around in a nervous state of frenzy, looking out the windows as the bombs came closer and the fall of Saigon was impending.

My family along with millions of other Vietnamese were desperate to flee the country as the Communists continued to encroach into the South. My father who fought alongside the Americans against the North was subject to execution or internment camp as long as we remained in the country. Every American was our chance for salvation, they held the opportunity for us to start a new life with their compassion and the piece of government paperwork that would be our only chance to a life of freedom.

Never Give Up Hope

With desperation and frenzy running rampant, my aunt fought with others to beg every foreigner to help our family escape. (There are several documentaries which outline the trauma of the GI’s and the Embassy workers who suffer to this day from the guilt that they could only help a number of people, while the others they knew would be left to die.) On a particular day, there was a CIA agent surrounded by the melee of Vietnamese desperate for him to assist in their paperwork to escape. My aunt was pushed farther and farther to the outskirts of the crowd and desperately, quietly, gave up. For some inexplicable reason, he chose to follow after her and agreed to help her and our entire family.

Danger All Around

Living in the free society as we do here, it’s difficult to understand what it is like to live in constant fear of the government and the eyes and ears they have all around. As nighttime fell, we were secretly transported in small groups to avoid raising any suspicion as we headed towards the U.S. refugee camps. Spies were everywhere, and with the slightest inkling that one was planning to flee, executions were imminent for men, women, and children…no one would be spared. Thus, one by one my family snuck out of the house at varying times lest we raise the suspicion of prying neighbor eyes.

Finding "Life" in Sickness

For over a week, we sat at the refugee camp, with no notice or direction on where to go. No word from the American who had tried to help us. But now we had a more terrible sense of urgency – my cousin had drank poisoned milk from a street vendor and was becoming gradually more ill. His mother (the aunt referenced above) rushed him to the infirmary located all the way on the other side of camp. As she carried her son, she walked across the road where a military jeep stopped in it’s tracks. The CIA agent she had met who had agreed to help us jumped out and came running frantically asking why we were still in the camp. Come to find out that our paperwork had been lost and had he not seen my aunt on her way to garner medical care for my ailing cousin, we would have sat in the camp indefinitely.

The Runway to Freedom

Once our paperwork was reprocessed, we were immediately transported to the airport bound for transport to the U.S. There on the runway was our final hope, the last military cargo plane out of Vietnam. On both sides were GIs armed with machine guns as we ran down the tarmac towards the plane with Communist soldiers close behind. As the cargo door closed behind us, we left behind everything we had ever known – our life, our dreams, our livelihood. But what we had gained..was a hope for a new life – one that the millions of other refugees would lose as the airports were bombed by the North Vietnamese and the last military helicopters retreated into the skies.

An Image is Worth a Thousand Dreams

The cargo plane was so full of people that my father spent much of the flight standing on one leg as he held me, but discomfort is so meaningless when you have your life spared. We landed in the Philippines and were transferred to another plane which landed in Wake Island (A coral atoll in the North Pacific Ocean, managed by the US Air Force and the US Army). My mother tells me her and I were the very first passengers to de-board the plane, as there was press and media present, and they requested the youngest refugee to deplane first. Perhaps somewhere out there is an image of me as one of the first refugees at Wake Island as I was only a baby. If this is true, I consider myself to be a very special individual, to be the first Vietnamese refugee on Wake Island. Thirty years later, I did end up with my image up in New York Times Square.

Life is Sweeter Because Someone Gave

We were transported to Camp Pendleton and sponsored by a wonderful American family. As for the CIA agent who helped us escape, we never saw him again. My aunt, the only one who knew of him and the reason why we are here today, died just a few years after coming to the U.S. I am on quest to this day to find him, if you can help me – please let me know.

I’m proud to be an American, and words will never be able to appropriately express it. Every day I am grateful for my life here in the U.S. I work hard and I give back. Oddly enough, I did end up returning to visit Camp Pendleton as an adult because my future husband was enlisted when we fell in love.

My entire family is here, I have a wonderful job, a fiancé who loves me more than life itself, history as an ex-cheerleader for the Mighty Ducks and Anaheim Angels, spearheaded efforts to help raised over $150,000 for various charities, and even appeared up in lights in New York Times Square. This is an attempt to be narcissistic (obviously), but less so than it is to share with you the incredible power that everyone has to help one another and change lives. I could have died in Vietnam in the ravages of war, but I am writing this to you today because of the help and support that we were afforded by the love and compassion of others.

HOPE, HOPE, HOPE: It’s what drives me and kindles my spirit…the hope that I can do something in every interaction to keep that same part alive in another human being. It’s more divine and impactful than you can ever imagine, I know because I lived it.

Brittanie